What did Lenin become famous for? Who is Lenin? IN AND

Every schoolchild, studying the history of Russia, meets a person like Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. But what outstanding thing did he do that his personality is familiar to all people, and not only Russians?

Lenin became leader of the proletariat, the most famous politician in the world. It is with his image that the concept of a true leader can be associated.

Vladimir Ulyanov (this is his real name) was born in 1870, into an ordinary intelligent family, his father was a school inspector, his mother was a school teacher. Vova grew up in a large family, he was the third child and, like his brother and sister, received a lot of attention and care, because his mother refused to work in order to raise her children properly.

From childhood he showed leader inclinations, strived to be the best in everything. He learned to read early, and for a five-year-old boy he knew so much that he received the nickname “a walking encyclopedia.” At school he was an exemplary student, distinguished by accuracy, diligence in completing work, and constantly brought home certificates and certificates of merit.

He graduated from the gymnasium very honorably, and Vladimir decided to go to Kazan University to study law. At the same time, an event occurred that completely turned the young man’s life upside down: Alexander, older brother was executed for involvement in the assassination attempt on Alexander III.

This became the basis for hating the tsarist system and organizing, as a first-year student, a revolutionary organization. For similar activities Ulyanov expelled and sent into exile, to a godforsaken village in the Kazan region.

In order to divert her son's attention from the revolutionary movement, the mother, who inherited a large estate in the Simbirsk province, sends Vladimir to manage it. But this does not prevent people from agitating against capitalism, creating Protestant movements.

After some time, in 1891, Ulyanov passed all the exams of the Imperial St. Petersburg University ahead of schedule and received law degree. After 2 years, he moved to Leningrad and began working on a program for creating a Social Democratic Party.

In the organisation " Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class“Ulyanov unites all circles of Marxists, all together they work to implement the overthrow of the autocracy. Having created the newspaper “Iskra”, Ulyanov signed the name “Lenin”, which later became his pseudonym. Through his articles, Lenin engaged in agitation of the population.

Later, Vladimir Lenin headed the congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party, which was divided into the Bolsheviks - people who shared Lenin's ideas and followed them - and the Mensheviks - opponents of Lenin's ideas.

During the Russian Revolution, Lenin was in exile in Switzerland, where he pondered plan for organizing an armed uprising.

At the same time, the very first revolution took place in Russia, caused by the reluctance of the authorities to implement reforms of a liberal nature, the miserable condition of the peasant class and the lack of rights among the working population. Vladimir Ilyich was interested in suppressing the first Russian revolution, since it alienated citizens from achieving and proclaiming socialism.

To correct this, Lenin came to St. Petersburg again and agitated the peasant population, winning him over to his side, to organize an armed uprising. It was recommended to stock up on weapons to attack government officials.

Lenin wanted his like-minded people to unite, and that’s what happened, but he himself was sent to prison because he was suspected of spying on Russia. In 1917, he still managed to return and hold a solemn meeting with the people, at which the leader called for participation in the revolution of socialism.

The Provisional Government was arrested, and Lenin became the head of the Council of People's Commissars. After this, the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic was officially formed, the head of which was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Lenin's actions it is impossible to give an unambiguous positive or negative assessment, since the necessary changes in the state and violent ones were observed, such as the execution of the royal family of Nicholas II in Yekaterinburg, in the Ipatiev house. Opponents of Vladimir Lenin's ideas were easily shot, officially allowing the death penalty.

In this way, the power of the leader of the proletariat was strengthened. The Russian Orthodox Church was badly damaged, and believers became the main enemies, against whom they used violence, forced them to abandon their previous ideas and work for the good of communism.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (took this pseudonym instead of the surname Ulyanov) was born on April 22, 1870 in the city of Simbirsk, which was later named Ulyanovsk in his honor, into the family of a former serf. He received his initial education in the same city where he grew up, at the Simbirsk gymnasium. Then he continued his education at Kazan University. He spent his youth vigorously and was expelled from the university for supporting and participating in the student movement. After this, in Kazan in 1887, he joined a Marxist organization. Vladimir Ilyich made significant achievements in his revolutionary activities. Like his brother Alexander, who was executed for organizing an assassination attempt on Alexander III, Vladimir became the image of “Narodnaya Volya”, its ideologist.

In 1890, he studied economic literature for admission to the Faculty of Law of the Imperial St. Petersburg University. At the same time, his views significantly transformed from identifying the people's will to the social democratic direction. The year 1895 foreshadowed the time of travel abroad for Vladimir Lenin. He visited Switzerland, Germany, France. In the same year, together with other figures, he created the circle of the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.” A figure like Georgy Plekhanov, with whom he had a close friendship and shared the same views, conveyed to him the doctrine of Tsarist Russia of that time as an almost feudal country that enslaved the working class. He was repeatedly subjected to several exiles for his views. The famous revolutionary N. Krupskaya, who was his common-law wife (then they got married in church, despite the fact that Lenin was an atheist. This was a forced decision, since only official wives could go into exile after their husbands), followed him at the first his link. In the book “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” I tried to present in an accessible way my ideas for the further development of the country’s economy. At the RSDLP party congresses he prepared popular demonstrations, slogans, and rallies. On October 20, 1917, the October Revolution took place, which proclaimed the main class in Russia at that time - the proletarian class. His further actions were the decision to withdraw from the world war and preserve his strength. At the same time, a report was written on the creation of the Red Army. On August 30, 1918, an assassination attempt was made on Vladimir Lenin, where he was severely wounded, but thanks to the subsequent operation he survived. The culprit was Fanny Kaplan, a member of a group of Socialist Revolutionaries who categorically opposed the policies of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. After some time, the policy of war communism was introduced, which, according to data, was necessary for the growth of the national economy, maintaining the New Economic Policy (NEP), and, subsequently, the creation of a stable socialist state (USSR). Vladimir Lenin spent the last years of his life being treated for atherosclerosis, which significantly affected him. Died on January 21, 1924.

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reign: 1917-1924)

  LENIN (Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich(04/10/22/1870-01/21/1924) - statesman and political figure, founder of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet state.

Born in Simbirsk in the family of I.N. Ulyanov, a figure of public education who received hereditary nobility. In 1887 he graduated from high school with a gold medal. In the same year, Vladimir’s elder brother, Alexander, who was a supporter of the terrorist wing of populism, was executed for preparing an assassination attempt on Alexander III. In 1887, V. Ulyanov entered the law faculty of Kazan University. In December of the same year, he was arrested for participating in a student meeting and expelled from the university. Sent to the family estate in the village of Kokushkino, Kazan province. The death of his brother forced V. Ulyanov to turn to revolutionary activity. He took up the study of Marxism.

In 1891, he passed the university exams as an external student. From 1892 to 1893 worked in Samara as an assistant to a sworn attorney. Since 1893, he was a member of the student circle of Marxists at the Technological Institute, and carried out propaganda in working-class circles. In 1894-1895 His first major works were published criticizing populism and justifying Marxism, “What are “friends of the people” and how they fight against the Social Democrats,” “The economic content of populism...”. Then he met N.K. Krupskaya, who 4 years later became his wife. In 1895 - one of the founders of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class. Was arrested. In 1897, V.I. was expelled. Ulyanov (Lenin) for 3 years in the village of Shushenskoye, Yenisei province. From then on he became a professional revolutionary.

In 1900 he went abroad. Together with G.V. Plekhanov began publishing the newspaper Iskra. He published his works under various pseudonyms, one of which - Lenin - remained with him forever. At the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903) he headed the Bolshevik faction. In 1904 Yu.O. Martov was the first to use the term “Leninism,” denoting the movement of Lenin’s supporters. During the revolution of 1905-1907. Lenin oriented the Bolsheviks towards an armed uprising against tsarism and towards the establishment of a democratic republic. In November 1905 he returned to Russia illegally and led the work of the party. In December 1907 he emigrated. After the revolution of 1905-1907. took a number of steps to strengthen the Bolshevik wing of the RSDLP. He actively participated in the restoration of the central bodies of the party, which were in crisis after the defeat of the revolution.

At the 6th Prague Party Conference in 1912, he separated the Bolshevik wing of the RSDLP into a separate party - the RSDLP (Bolsheviks). Elected a member of the Central Committee, on his initiative the newspaper Pravda was created. He supported actions of forced expropriation of funds (bank robberies, etc.) to replenish the party coffers.

At the beginning of World War I, while on the territory of Austria-Hungary (Poronino), he was arrested on suspicion of espionage for Russia. After his release he went to Switzerland. He opposed the war and put forward the slogan of turning the imperialist war into a civil war. By the end of the summer of 1915, he concluded that in the era of imperialism " the victory of socialism is possible initially in a few or even in one individual capitalist country".

I learned about the victory of the February Revolution of 1917 from Swiss newspapers. On March 6, after the English and French governments refused to allow political emigrants into Russia, a meeting of their representatives accepted Martov’s proposal (at the suggestion of the German General Staff agent Parvus) to return through Germany. The carriage in which the political emigrants were to travel was assigned extraterritoriality; under no circumstances were passengers to leave it. On March 27, the carriage with emigrants left Switzerland. Hoping that the activities of the Bolsheviks would weaken the Russian army, Germany provided them with financial assistance.

April 3, 1917 V.I. Lenin returned to Russia. On April 4, he proposed a program for the transition from a bourgeois-democratic revolution to a socialist one under the slogan “All power to the Soviets!” (“April Theses”). G.V. Plekhanov assessed this program as an insane, extremely harmful attempt." sow anarchic unrest on Russian soil". At the 1st Congress of Soviets in June 1917, where Lenin was supported by only 10% of the delegates, he declared that the Bolshevik Party was ready to take power. In the July days, due to unrest among the soldiers of the St. Petersburg garrison, which was supposed to be sent to front, the Bolsheviks tried to achieve the transfer of power to the Soviets, but were unsuccessful. The Bolsheviks were accused of treason, Lenin and Zinoviev were forced to hide. At the beginning of October 1917, Lenin returned illegally to Petrograd. At a meeting of the Central Committee on October 10 and 16, together with Trotsky, despite the objections Kamenev and Zinoviev, achieved a decision to start an armed uprising. On the evening of October 24, he was in the Smolny Palace, from where he led the uprising. On October 26, at the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets, based on his reports, decrees on peace and land were adopted, the congress formed the first Bolshevik government - Sovnarkom , of which Lenin was elected chairman.

Having become the head of the government, Lenin began to oust “right” parties from the political life of Russia, some of them were banned, and freedom of speech was ended. In January 1918, by order of Lenin, the Constituent Assembly, which refused to recognize the power of the Bolsheviks, was dispersed.

In the beginning. 1918 Lenin actively fought with the “left communists” and Trotsky over the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty. As a result, the “shameful” Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed with Germany; Germany occupied a huge part of Russian territory. Resistance to the Bolshevik policies resulted in the Civil War.

After the suppression of the Left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion in July 1918, Lenin became the undisputed leader of the party and head of state. August 30, 1918 for the life of V.I. An assassination attempt was made on Lenin and he was seriously wounded. After this, “Red Terror” was declared in the country, which led to numerous casualties.

Lenin became the ideologist of the policy of "war communism". During the period of “war communism”, free trade was prohibited in the country, commodity-money relations were replaced by natural exchange, and surplus appropriation was introduced. The policy of "war communism" caused discontent among the peasantry. Peasant uprisings took place throughout the country. In response, hundreds of political opponents of the Bolsheviks were arrested, imprisoned in concentration camps, expelled from the country, and a blow was struck against the Russian Orthodox Church. On Lenin’s personal instructions, over 8 thousand priests and monks were shot, monasteries and cathedrals were desecrated and looted.

As a result of "war communism" and the Civil War, the country lost approx. 10 million people, industrial production decreased by 1920 compared to 1913 by 7 times. But, despite the support of the anti-Bolshevik protests by the Entente countries and the complete international isolation of Lenin’s government, the Bolsheviks under his leadership managed to win the Civil War. In 1917-1922. Lenin's unique organizational talent and his will to win by any means emerged.

The sharp deterioration of the economic situation in the country, caused by the destructive fratricidal war, required a change in policy. At the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, Lenin put forward a program of “new economic policy” (NEP), which soon brought positive results. The process of economic growth began, but Lenin did not have to pursue this economic policy; a serious illness put him out of action for a long time. His forced departure from leadership soon sparked a struggle for power in the country and the party, with Stalin and Trotsky vying for the role of leader. Already at the beginning 1923 Lenin, foreseeing a split in the Central Committee, in his “Letter to the Congress” described all the leading figures of the Central Committee and proposed to remove I.V. Stalin from the post of General Secretary. He also opposed the growth of the bureaucratic apparatus and for strengthening workers' control. However, his health deteriorated sharply; in the last months of his life, Lenin was paralyzed and died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was buried in Moscow in the Mausoleum on Red Square.

After his death, a grandiose myth was created around Lenin’s name; his biography was constantly “varnished” in accordance with the requirements of the current political moment. Nowadays, only one thing is indisputable: he was a politician on a global scale, who determined the development of world history of the 20th century for many years.

Lenin's biography is one of the most interesting and mysterious among world-famous politicians. After all, it was Lenin who was the main organizer of the October Revolution of 1917, which radically changed the history of not only Russia, but also the world.

Vladimir Lenin wrote many works concerning Marxism, communism, socialism and political philosophy.

Some consider him the greatest revolutionary and reformer, while others accuse him of serious crimes and call him a madman. So who is he, Vladimir Lenin, a genius or a villain?

In this article we will highlight the most significant events in Lenin’s biography, and also try to understand why his activities still evoke radically opposing opinions and assessments.

Biography of Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on April 10, 1870 in Simbirsk (now). His father, Ilya Nikolaevich, worked as an inspector of public depositories, and his mother, Maria Alexandrovna, was a home teacher.

Childhood and youth

During the biography period 1879-1887. Vladimir Lenin studied at the Simbirsk gymnasium, from which he graduated with honors. In 1887, his older brother Alexander was executed for preparing an assassination attempt on the Tsar.

This event shocked the entire Ulyanov family, because no one even knew that Alexander was engaged in revolutionary activities.

Special features of V. I. Lenin

Lenin's education

After high school, Lenin continued his studies at Kazan University at the Faculty of Law. It was then that he began to become seriously interested in politics.

The execution of his brother greatly influenced his worldview, so it is not surprising that he quickly became interested in new political movements.

Without studying at the university for even six months, Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin was expelled from it for participating in student riots.

At the age of 21, he graduated from the law department of St. Petersburg University as an external student. After this, Lenin worked for some time as an assistant to a sworn attorney.

But this work did not bring him inner satisfaction, because he dreamed of great achievements.

Personal life

Lenin's only official wife was Lenin, who supported her husband in everything.

However, these events did not break the spirit of the young revolutionary, convinced of the correctness of his views.

In 1899, he completed a work entitled “The Development of Capitalism in Russia.” In it, Lenin analyzed the economic development of the empire, criticized representatives of liberal populism, and warned of the inevitable approach of the bourgeois revolution.

At the same time, he studied the works of the popular Marxist theorist Karl Kautsky. It was from there that Lenin gleaned a lot of important information for his own political system.

In these cities, Vladimir Ilyich actively collaborated with his like-minded people, nurturing the idea of ​​a revolution in Russia.

Pseudonym "Lenin"

A year later, Ulyanov took the pseudonym “Lenin”, under which he entered world history. He continued to communicate closely with Plekhanov, although by that time he himself already had great authority among like-minded people.

Revolutionary activities

In December 1900, a group of Russian emigrants created the Social Democratic newspaper Iskra. Most of the work on organizing the publication was carried out by Lenin.

He was responsible not only for the material published in the newspaper, but also for its distribution. Later, Iskra was illegally supplied to the Russian Empire.

In 1903, a split occurred in the Social Democratic Party, as a result of which it was divided into “Mensheviks” and “Bolsheviks.” Lenin became the leader of the "Bolsheviks", who would later become at the helm of power.

During the biography of 1905-1907. he lived underground in St. Petersburg, only occasionally traveling abroad. After this, Vladimir Ilyich lived in different European countries for 10 years.

At that time, he became the most famous and authoritative initiator of the Russian revolution.

In 1914 Lenin lived in Austria-Hungary. However, he was soon accused of being a Russian spy.

He was immediately arrested, but thanks to the intervention of influential Social Democrats, he was soon released.

The next place of residence of the leader of the proletariat was, where he began to actively promote his ideas. In particular, Vladimir Ilyich wanted to turn the imperialist war into a civil war.

October Revolution

In the spring of 1917, Lenin spoke in St. Petersburg with his famous “April Theses”. In them, he outlined in detail his vision of the beginning of the socialist revolution.

Lenin was not only a very literate person, but also a very talented speaker. That is why, despite his burr, he literally attracted the attention of people at numerous rallies.

He managed to speak in public for hours and answer the most inconvenient questions.

Feeling confident in his abilities and supported by the masses, Lenin began to think about a plan regarding a coup d'etat and the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Soon he will actually be able to implement this plan.

In October 1917, while in the Smolny building, Lenin gave the order to attack. As a result, the Provisional Government was eliminated, and all power ended up in the hands of the Bolsheviks.

Soon, the formation of a new government was solemnly announced - the Council of People's Commissars, whose leader was Lenin.

Some biographers claim that the leader himself could not have imagined that the revolution would come so quickly.

After all, just a few months before the coup d’etat, although Lenin in his speeches spoke about impending changes, he pointed to the decades during which all this was to come true.

Creation of the USSR

After the coup, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his associates promulgated resolutions that spoke of withdrawal from the First World War and the transfer of private land to the peasants.

As a result, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed between Russia.

It became the new capital of Soviet Russia, where Vladimir Lenin continued his work.

Having firmly established himself in the Kremlin, he began to fight any manifestation of dissent. In the summer of 1918, the leader gave the order for the forceful suppression of the left Socialist Revolutionaries, in which many people died.

At the height of the Civil War, anarchists also opposed the Bolsheviks. However, the forces turned out to be unequal, as a result of which the anarchists were defeated and repressed.

On August 30, 1918, an assassination attempt was made on Lenin, after which he was seriously wounded.

This incident became known throughout the country, thanks to which the people began to respect Lenin even more.

Soon the policy of war communism came into force. The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) was formed, which fought against counter-revolutionary elements.

The employees of this organization had great powers. As a result, the security officers almost completely eliminated the remnants of dissent.

Their methods of fighting “enemies of the people” were often accompanied by violent actions, manifested in various forms.

After the end of the Civil War in 1922, the revival of the national economy began. War communism was abolished, and the surplus appropriation system was replaced by a food tax.

At the same time, the NEP (New Economic Policy) was introduced in the country, according to which private trade was allowed.

At the same time, the NEP policy envisaged the development of state-owned enterprises, electrification and cooperation.

Year of formation of the USSR

The last years of Lenin's life

It is obvious that many political events that occurred in Lenin’s biography over the past few years could not but affect his health.

Thus, in the spring of 1922, he suffered 2 strokes, but at the same time retained his sanity. Lenin's last public speech took place on November 20, 1922 at the plenum of the Moscow Soviet.

On December 16, 1922, his health condition again deteriorated sharply, and on May 15, 1923, due to illness, he moved to the Gorki estate near Moscow.

Ailing Lenin in Gorki

But even in this state, Lenin, with the help of a stenographer, dictated letters and various notes. A year later he suffered a third stroke, which left him completely disabled.

Farewell to the leader of the world proletariat took place over 5 days. On the sixth day after his death, Lenin's body was embalmed and placed in the Mausoleum.

Many cities and streets of the USSR were named after the leader. It was difficult to find a city where there was no street or square named after Lenin, not to mention the tens of thousands of monuments erected throughout Russia.

After Lenin, he took over the Soviet Union and ruled for almost 30 years.

Lenin and Gorki, 1922

• An interesting fact is that during his life Vladimir Lenin wrote about 30,000 documents. At the same time, he managed to speak at hundreds of rallies and lead a huge state.
• Lenin played chess all his life.
• Ilyich had a party nickname, which was used by his comrades and himself: “Old Man.”
• Lenin's height was 164 cm.
• Russian inventor Lev Theremin, who personally met Lenin, noted that he was very surprised by the leader’s bright red hair.
• According to the recollections of many contemporaries, Lenin was a very cheerful person who loved a good joke.
• At school, Lenin was an excellent student, and upon graduation he received a gold medal.

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The figure of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin has attracted the close attention of historians and politicians around the world for almost centuries. One of the most taboo topics in “Leninianism” in the USSR is the origin of Lenin, his genealogy. This same topic was subject to the greatest speculation on the part of geopolitical opponents of the state, whose founder and “banner” was V.I. Lenin.

Secrets of Lenin's biography

How did the children of serfs become hereditary nobles, why did the Soviet government classify information about the leader's maternal ancestors, and how did Vladimir Ulyanov turn into Nikolai Lenin in the early 1900s?
Ulyanov family. From left to right: standing - Olga, Alexander, Anna; sitting - Maria Alexandrovna with her youngest daughter Maria, Dmitry, Ilya Nikolaevich, Vladimir. Simbirsk 1879 Courtesy of M. Zolotarev

Biographical chronicle of V.I. Lenin" begins with the entry: "April, 10 (22). Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) was born. Vladimir Ilyich’s father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, was at that time an inspector and then the director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. He came from poor townspeople of the city of Astrakhan. His father was previously a serf. Lenin's mother Maria Alexandrovna was the daughter of the doctor A.D. Blanca."

It is curious that Lenin himself did not know many details of his ancestry. In their family, as in the families of other commoners, it was somehow not customary to delve into their “genealogical roots.” It was only later, after the death of Vladimir Ilyich, when interest in this kind of problems began to grow, that his sisters took up this research. Therefore, when Lenin received a detailed party census questionnaire in 1922, when asked about the occupation of his paternal grandfather, he sincerely answered: “I don’t know.”

GRANDSON OF A SERF

Meanwhile, Lenin’s paternal grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were indeed serfs. Great-great-grandfather - Nikita Grigorievich Ulyanin - was born in 1711. According to the revision tale of 1782, he and the family of his youngest son Feofan were recorded as a servant of the landowner of the village of Androsova, Sergach district, Nizhny Novgorod governorship, Marfa Semyonovna Myakinina.

According to the same revision, his eldest son Vasily Nikitich Ulyanin, born in 1733, with his wife Anna Semionovna and children Samoila, Porfiry and Nikolai lived in the same place, but were considered servants of the cornet Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov. According to the revision of 1795, Lenin’s grandfather Nikolai Vasilyevich, 25 years old, single, lived with his mother and brothers in the same village, but they were already listed as servants of ensign Mikhail Stepanovich Brekhov.

Of course, he was listed, but he was no longer in the village then...

The Astrakhan archive contains the document “Lists of registered landowner peasants expected to be counted as fugitives from different provinces,” where under number 223 it is written: “Nikolai Vasilyev, son of Ulyanin... Nizhny Novgorod province, Sergach district, village of Androsov, landowner Stepan Mikhailovich Brekhov, peasant. He left in 1791." It is not known for sure whether he was a runaway or released on quitrent and redeemed, but in 1799 in Astrakhan Nikolai Vasilyevich was transferred to the category of state peasants, and in 1808 he was accepted into the petty bourgeois class, into the workshop of artisan tailors.

Having gotten rid of serfdom and becoming a free man, Nikolai Vasilyevich changed his surname Ulyanin to Ulyaninov, and then Ulyanov. Soon he married the daughter of the Astrakhan tradesman Alexei Lukyanovich Smirnov - Anna, who was born in 1788 and was 18 years younger than her husband.

Based on some archival documents, the writer Marietta Shaginyan put forward a version according to which Anna Alekseevna is not Smirnov’s own daughter, but a baptized Kalmyk woman, rescued by him from slavery and allegedly adopted only in March 1825.

There is no indisputable evidence for this version, especially since already in 1812 she and Nikolai Ulyanov had a son, Alexander, who died four months old; in 1819, a son, Vasily, was born; in 1821, a daughter, Maria; in 1823 - Feodosiya and, finally, in July 1831, when the head of the family was already over 60, son Ilya - the father of the future leader of the world proletariat.

FATHER'S TEACHING CAREER

After the death of Nikolai Vasilyevich, concerns about the family and raising children fell on the shoulders of his eldest son, Vasily Nikolaevich. Working at that time as a clerk at the famous Astrakhan company “Brothers Sapozhnikov” and not having his own family, he managed to ensure prosperity in the house and even gave his younger brother Ilya an education.

ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV GRADUATED PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS FACULTY OF KAZAN UNIVERSITY.
HE WAS SUGGESTED TO STAY AT THE DEPARTMENT TO “IMPROVE IN SCIENTIFIC WORK” – THIS WAS INSISTED BY THE FAMOUS MATHEMATICIST NIKOLAY IVANOVICH LOBACHEVSKY

In 1850, Ilya Nikolaevich graduated from the Astrakhan gymnasium with a silver medal and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Kazan University, where he completed his studies in 1854, receiving the title of Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the right to teach in secondary educational institutions. And although he was invited to remain at the department for “improvement in scientific work” (the famous mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky insisted on this, by the way), Ilya Nikolaevich chose a career as a teacher.

Monument to Lobachevsky in Kazan. Beginning of the 20th century. Courtesy of M. Zolotarev

His first place of work - from May 7, 1855 - was the Noble Institute in Penza. In July 1860, Ivan Dmitrievich Veretennikov came here to the position of inspector of the institute. Ilya Nikolaevich became friends with him and his wife, and in the same year Anna Aleksandrovna Veretennikova (née Blank) introduced him to her sister Maria Alexandrovna Blank, who came to visit her for the winter. Ilya Nikolaevich began to help Maria prepare for the exam for the title of teacher, and she helped him with conversational English. The young people fell in love with each other, and in the spring of 1863 an engagement took place.

On July 15 of the same year, after successfully passing external exams at the Samara Men's Gymnasium, “the daughter of the court councilor, Maiden Maria Blank,” received the title of primary school teacher “with the right to teach the Law of God, the Russian language, arithmetic, German and French.” And in August they already had a wedding, and the “maiden Maria Blank” became the wife of the court councilor Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov - this rank was also granted to him in July 1863.

Panorama of Simbirsk from the Moscow highway. 1866–1867. Courtesy of M. Zolotarev

The genealogy of the Blank family began to be studied by Lenin’s sisters, Anna and Maria. Anna Ilyinichna said: “The elders could not find out this for us. The surname seemed to us to be of French origin, but there was no information about such an origin. I personally began to think about the possibility of Jewish origin quite a long time ago, which was prompted mainly by my mother’s message that my grandfather was born in Zhitomir, a famous Jewish center. Grandmother - mother's mother - was born in St. Petersburg and was of German origin from Riga. But while my mother and her sisters maintained contact with their maternal relatives for quite a long time, about her father’s relatives, A.D. Blank, no one heard. He looked like a cut piece, which also made me think about his Jewish origin. His daughters did not remember any of the grandfather’s stories about his childhood or youth.”

Anna Ilyinichna Ulyanova reported the results of the search, which confirmed her assumption, to Joseph Stalin in 1932 and 1934. “The fact of our origin, which I had assumed before,” she wrote, “was not known during his [Lenin’s] lifetime... I don’t know what motives we communists might have for hushing up this fact.”

“To remain absolutely silent about him” was Stalin’s categorical answer. And Lenin’s second sister, Maria Ilyinichna, also believed that this fact “let it be known someday in a hundred years.”

Lenin's great-grandfather, Moshe Itskovich Blank, was apparently born in 1763. The first mention of him is contained in the revision of 1795, where among the townspeople of the city of Starokonstantinov, Volyn province, Moishka Blank is recorded under number 394. Where he came from in these places is unclear. However…
Some time ago, the famous bibliographer Maya Dvorkina introduced an interesting fact into scientific circulation. Somewhere in the mid-1920s, archivist Yulian Grigoryevich Oksman, who was studying the genealogy of the leader of the world proletariat on the instructions of the director of the Lenin Library Vladimir Ivanovich Nevsky, discovered a petition from one of the Jewish communities of the Minsk province, supposedly dating back to the beginning of the 19th century, for the exemption from taxes of a certain boy , because he is “the illegitimate son of a major Minsk official,” and therefore, they say, the community should not pay for him. The boy's last name was Blank.

According to Oksman, Nevsky took him to Lev Kamenev, and then the three of them went to Nikolai Bukharin. Showing the document, Kamenev muttered: “I always thought so.” To which Bukharin replied: “What do you think – it doesn’t matter, but what are we going to do?” Oksman was made to promise that he would not tell anyone about the find. And since then no one has seen this document.

One way or another, Moshe Blank appeared in Starokonstantinov, already an adult, and in 1793 he married a local 29-year-old girl, Maryam (Marem) Froimovich. From subsequent audits it follows that he read both Hebrew and Russian, had his own house, was engaged in trade, and in addition, near the town of Rogachevo, he rented 5 morgues (about 3 hectares) of land, which were sown with chicory.

In 1794, his son Aba (Abel) was born, and in 1799, his son Srul (Israel). Moshe Itzkovich probably did not have a good relationship with the local Jewish community from the very beginning. He was “a man who did not want, or perhaps did not know how, to find a common language with his fellow tribesmen.” In other words, the community simply hated him. And after Blank’s house burned down in 1808 due to fire, and possibly arson, the family moved to Zhitomir.

LETTER TO THE EMPEROR

Many years later, in September 1846, Moshe Blank wrote a letter to Emperor Nicholas I, from which it is clear that already “40 years ago” he “renounced the Jews,” but because of his “overly pious wife,” who died in 1834 , converted to Christianity and received the name Dmitry only on January 1, 1835.

But the reason for the letter was something else: while maintaining hostility towards his fellow tribesmen, Dmitry (Moshe) Blank proposed - in order to assimilate the Jews - to prohibit them from wearing national clothes, and most importantly, to oblige them to pray in synagogues for the Russian emperor and the imperial family.

It is curious that in October of that year the letter was reported to Nicholas I and he fully agreed with the proposals of the “baptized Jew Blanc”, as a result of which in 1850 Jews were banned from wearing national clothing, and in 1854 the corresponding text of the prayer was introduced. Researcher Mikhail Stein, who collected and carefully analyzed the most complete data on Blank’s genealogy, rightly noted that in terms of hostility towards his people, Moshe Itskovich “can be compared, perhaps, only with another baptized Jew - one of the founders and leaders of the Moscow Union of Russian People V.A. . Greenmouth"...

Alexander Dmitrievich Blank (1799–1870). Courtesy of M. Zolotarev

The fact that Blank decided to break with the Jewish community long before his baptism was also evidenced by other things. Both of his sons, Abel and Israel, like their father, also knew how to read Russian, and when a district (povet) school opened in Zhitomir in 1816, they were enrolled there and successfully graduated. From the point of view of Jewish believers, this was blasphemy. And yet, belonging to the Jewish religion doomed them to vegetate within the boundaries of the Pale of Settlement. And only an event that happened in the spring of 1820 radically changed the fate of young people...

In April, a “high rank” – the head of affairs of the so-called Jewish Committee, senator and poet Dmitry Osipovich Baranov – arrived in Zhitomir on a business trip. Somehow, Blank managed to meet him, and he asked the senator to assist his sons in entering the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. Baranov did not at all sympathize with Jews, but the rather rare conversion of two “lost souls” to Christianity at that time, in his opinion, was a good thing, and he agreed.

The brothers immediately went to the capital and submitted a petition addressed to Metropolitan Michael of Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Estonia and Finland. “Having now settled in St. Petersburg,” they wrote, “and having always been treated with Christians professing the Greek-Russian religion, we now wish to accept it.”

The petition was granted, and already on May 25, 1820, the priest of the Church of St. Sampson the Stranger in St. Petersburg, Fyodor Barsov, “enlightened both brothers with baptism.” Abel became Dmitry Dmitrievich, and Israel became Alexander Dmitrievich. The youngest son of Moshe Blank received a new name in honor of his successor (godfather), Count Alexander Ivanovich Apraksin, and a patronymic in honor of Abel’s successor, Senator Dmitry Osipovich Baranov. And on July 31 of the same year, at the direction of the Minister of Education, Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Golitsyn, the brothers were identified as “pupils of the Medical-Surgical Academy,” which they graduated in 1824, receiving the academic title of doctors of the 2nd department and a gift in the form of a pocket set of surgical tools.

MARRIAGE OF THE STAFF DOCTOR

Dmitry Blank remained in the capital as a police doctor, and Alexander in August 1824 began serving in the city of Porechye, Smolensk province, as a district doctor. True, already in October 1825 he returned to St. Petersburg and, like his brother, was enrolled as a doctor in the city police staff. In 1828 he was promoted to staff physician. It was time to think about marriage...

His godfather, Count Alexander Apraksin, was at that time an official of special assignments at the Ministry of Finance. So Alexander Dmitrievich, despite his origin, could well count on a decent match. Apparently, at another of his benefactors, Senator Dmitry Baranov, who was fond of poetry and chess, with whom Alexander Pushkin visited and almost the entire “enlightened Petersburg” gathered, the younger Blank met the Groschopf brothers and was received in their house.

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (1831–1886) and Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (1835–1916)

The head of this very respectable family, Ivan Fedorovich (Johann Gottlieb) Groshopf, was from the Baltic Germans, was a consul of the State College of Justice for Livonian, Estonian and Finnish affairs and rose to the rank of provincial secretary. His wife Anna Karlovna, née Östedt, was Swedish and Lutheran. There were eight children in the family: three sons - Johann, who served in the Russian army, Karl, vice-director in the foreign trade department of the Ministry of Finance, and Gustav, who was in charge of the Riga customs, and five daughters - Alexandra, Anna, Ekaterina (married von Essen) , Caroline (married Bouberg) and the younger Amalia. Having met this family, the staff doctor proposed to Anna Ivanovna.

MASHENKA FORM

Things went well for Alexander Dmitrievich at first. As a police doctor, he received 1 thousand rubles a year. He has received thanks more than once for his “quickness and diligence.”

But in June 1831, during the cholera riots in the capital, his brother Dmitry, who was on duty at the central cholera hospital, was brutally killed by a rioting crowd. This death shocked Alexander Blank so much that he resigned from the police and did not work for more than a year. Only in April 1833 did he re-enter service - as a resident at the City Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene for the poor from the districts beyond the river in St. Petersburg. By the way, it was here that Taras Shevchenko was treated by him in 1838. At the same time (from May 1833 to April 1837) Blank worked in the Maritime Department. In 1837, after passing the exams, he was recognized as an inspector of the medical board, and in 1838 - a medical surgeon.

IN 1874, ILYA NIKOLAEVICH ULYANOV RECEIVED THE POST OF DIRECTOR OF PEOPLE'S SCHOOL OF THE SIMBIRSK PROVINCE.
AND IN 1877, HE WAS AWARDED THE RANK OF ACTIVE STATE COUNSELOR, EQUAL IN THE TABLE OF RANKS TO THE RANK OF GENERAL AND GIVING THE RIGHT TO HEREDITARY NOBILITY

Alexander Dmitrievich’s private practice also expanded. Among his patients were representatives of the highest nobility. This allowed him to move to a decent apartment in a wing of one of the luxurious mansions on the Promenade des Anglais, which belonged to the emperor’s physician and the president of the Medical-Surgical Academy, baronet Yakov Vasilyevich Willie. Here in 1835 Maria Blank was born. Mashenka’s godfather was their neighbor, formerly the adjutant of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, and since 1833, the horsemaster of the Imperial Court, Ivan Dmitrievich Chertkov.

In 1840, Anna Ivanovna became seriously ill, died and was buried in St. Petersburg at the Smolensk Evangelical Cemetery. Then her sister Catherine von Essen, who was widowed that same year, took full care of the children. Alexander Dmitrievich, apparently, had sympathized with her before. It is no coincidence that he named his daughter, born in 1833, Ekaterina. After the death of Anna Ivanovna, they become even closer, and in April 1841, Blank decides to enter into a legal marriage with Ekaterina Ivanovna. However, the law did not allow such marriages - with the daughters' godmother and the deceased wife's own sister. And Catherine von Essen becomes his common-law wife.

In the same April, they all left the capital and moved to Perm, where Alexander Dmitrievich received the position of inspector of the Perm Medical Council and doctor of the Perm Gymnasium. Thanks to the latter circumstance, Blank met the Latin teacher Ivan Dmitrievich Veretennikov, who became the husband of his eldest daughter Anna in 1850, and the mathematics teacher Andrei Aleksandrovich Zalezhsky, who married another daughter, Ekaterina.

Alexander Blank entered the history of Russian medicine as one of the pioneers of balneology - treatment with mineral waters. Having retired at the end of 1847 from the post of doctor at the Zlatoust arms factory, he left for the Kazan province, where in 1848 the Kokushkino estate with 462 acres (503.6 hectares) of land, a water mill and 39 serfs was purchased in Laishevsky district. On August 4, 1859, the Senate confirmed Alexander Dmitrievich Blank and his children in the hereditary nobility, and they were included in the book of the Kazan Noble Deputy Assembly.

THE ULYANOV FAMILY

This is how Maria Alexandrovna Blank ended up in Kazan, and then in Penza, where she met Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov...

Their wedding on August 25, 1863, like the weddings of the other Blank sisters before that, took place in Kokushkino. On September 22, the newlyweds left for Nizhny Novgorod, where Ilya Nikolaevich was appointed to the position of senior teacher of mathematics and physics at a men's gymnasium. On August 14, 1864, daughter Anna was born. A year and a half later - on March 31, 1866 - son Alexander... But soon there was a sad loss: daughter Olga, who was born in 1868, did not live even a year, fell ill and died on July 18 in the same Kokushkino...

On September 6, 1869, Ilya Nikolaevich was appointed inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk province. The family moved to Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), which at that time was a quiet provincial town with just over 40 thousand inhabitants, of whom 57.5% were listed as bourgeois, 17% as military, 11% as peasants, 8.8% as nobles, 3.2% - merchants and honorary citizens, and 1.8% - people of clergy, persons of other classes and foreigners. Accordingly, the city was divided into three parts: noble, commercial and bourgeois. In the nobility's house there were kerosene lanterns and plank sidewalks, and in the bourgeois' house all sorts of livestock were kept in the courtyards, and these animals, contrary to prohibitions, walked the streets.
Here the Ulyanovs had a son, Vladimir, born on April 10 (22), 1870. On April 16, priest Vasily Umov and sexton Vladimir Znamensky baptized the newborn. The godfather was the manager of the specific office in Simbirsk, the actual state councilor Arseny Fedorovich Belokrysenko, and the godfather was the mother of Ilya Nikolaevich’s colleague, collegiate assessor Natalia Ivanovna Aunovskaya.

Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (sitting third from the right) among the teachers of the Simbirsk men's classical gymnasium. 1874 Courtesy of M. Zolotarev

The family continued to grow. On November 4, 1871, the fourth child was born - daughter Olga. Son Nikolai died without living even a month, and on August 4, 1874, son Dmitry was born, and daughter Maria was born on February 6, 1878. Six children.
On July 11, 1874, Ilya Nikolaevich received the position of director of public schools in the Simbirsk province. And in December 1877, he was awarded the rank of actual state councilor, equal in the table of ranks to the rank of general and giving the right to hereditary nobility.

The salary increase made it possible to realize a long-time dream. Having changed six rented apartments since 1870 and having saved the necessary funds, on August 2, 1878, the Ulyanovs finally bought their own house on Moskovskaya Street for 4 thousand silver - from the widow of the titular councilor Ekaterina Petrovna Molchanova. It was made of wood, one storey on the façade and with mezzanines under the roof on the courtyard side. And behind the yard, overgrown with grass and chamomile, lies a beautiful garden with silver poplars, thick elms, yellow acacia and lilacs along the fence...
Ilya Nikolaevich died in Simbirsk in January 1886, Maria Alexandrovna died in Petrograd in July 1916, outliving her husband by 30 years.

WHERE DID “LENIN” COME FROM?

The question of how and where Vladimir Ulyanov got the pseudonym Nikolai Lenin in the spring of 1901 has always aroused the interest of researchers; there have been many versions. Among them are toponymic: both the Lena River (analogy: Plekhanov - Volgin) and the village of Lenin near Berlin appear. During the formation of “Leninoism” as a profession, they were looking for “amorous” sources. Thus was born the assertion that the Kazan beauty Elena Lenina was allegedly to blame for everything, in another version - the chorus girl of the Mariinsky Theater Elena Zaretskaya, etc. But none of these versions withstood the most serious scrutiny.

However, back in the 1950s and 1960s, the Central Party Archive received letters from relatives of a certain Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, which outlined a fairly convincing everyday story. Deputy head of the archive Rostislav Aleksandrovich Lavrov forwarded these letters to the CPSU Central Committee, and, naturally, they did not become available to a wide range of researchers.

Meanwhile, the Lenin family dates back to the Cossack Posnik, who in the 17th century, for his services associated with the conquest of Siberia and the creation of winter quarters on the Lena River, was granted nobility, the surname Lenin and an estate in the Vologda province. His numerous descendants distinguished themselves more than once in both military and official service. One of them, Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, fell ill and retired, having risen to the rank of state councilor, in the 80s of the 19th century and settled in the Yaroslavl province.

Volodya Ulyanov with his sister Olga. Simbirsk 1874 Courtesy of M. Zolotarev

His daughter Olga Nikolaevna, having graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Bestuzhev Courses in 1883, went to work at the Smolensk Evening Workers' School in St. Petersburg, where she met Nadezhda Krupskaya. And when there was a fear that the authorities might refuse to issue Vladimir Ulyanov a foreign passport, and friends began to look for smuggling options for crossing the border, Krupskaya turned to Lenina for help. Olga Nikolaevna then conveyed this request to her brother, a prominent official of the Ministry of Agriculture, agronomist Sergei Nikolaevich Lenin. In addition, a similar request apparently came to him from his friend, statistician Alexander Dmitrievich Tsyurupa, who in 1900 met the future leader of the proletariat.

Sergei Nikolaevich himself knew Vladimir Ilyich - from meetings in the Free Economic Society in 1895, as well as from his works. In turn, Ulyanov knew Lenin: for example, he refers three times to his articles in the monograph “The Development of Capitalism in Russia.” After consulting, the brother and sister decided to give Ulyanov the passport of their father, Nikolai Yegorovich, who by that time was already very ill (he died on April 6, 1902).

According to family legend, in 1900 Sergei Nikolaevich went to Pskov on official business. There, on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, he received Sack plows and other agricultural machines arriving in Russia from Germany. In one of the Pskov hotels, Lenin handed over his father’s passport with the altered date of birth to Vladimir Ilyich, who was then living in Pskov. This is probably how the origin of Ulyanov’s main pseudonym, N. Lenin, is explained.